by Andrea Mandell, USA TODAY

by Andrea Mandell, USA TODAY

In The Paperboy, director Lee Daniels continues what he started with 2009's Precious: heart-palpitating intensity, from the first frame to the final end credits. Notorious for coaxing daring performances out of his stars (Mo'Nique won an Oscar playing Precious' abusive mother, and Gabourey Sidibe also scored an Oscar nomination), Daniels demands even more in his new racially charged film. In a menacing 1960s story revolving around the questionable innocence of a violent man on death row (John Cusack), Nicole Kidman plays the hyper-sexualized Charlotte Bless, a woman so desperate to free her pen pal paramour she entices Miami Times reporter Wade Jansen (Matthew McConaughey) to his swampy, backwoods Florida hometown with a colleague (David Oyelowo) to investigate the grisly crime. Wade enlists his younger brother (Zac Efron) to assist.

Q: I just saw The Paperboy. As the credits rolled, all I could think was, "Oh god, what's he going to ask of Oprah in The Butler?A: (Laughs) "Get ready! That's a quote. Get ready for that one. It's PG-13. Literally, I wrapped (Monday) so you can imagine me directing a PG-13 movie. I feel like I literally was in a straightjacket. But even so, what we did with her, get ready."

Q: How did you feel wrapping The Butler?A: "It was really emotional. It was a hard one. It was the longest I'd ever shot before because it spans 70 years. It's a different kind of film for me too. The PG-13 is keeping it really clean and keeping it family. That was something unique. It was a stretch. And it was something that I needed to do."

Q: In keeping it PG-13, did you find yourself leaning on new techniques?A: "Tricks as it were? I have a couple of rabbits to pull out of the hat. It's hard. It is what it is. It's the story of a man in the White House. And from literally the cotton farms of slavery to Obama, so it's a different thing."

Q: Will Obama make an appearance?A: "Oh, he's not in it. We don't know yet whether he's in it. I don't know. We're trying to figure out whether to approach him. I don't know. We'll see. Cross your fingers. It may be an Obama look-a-like."

Q: On IMDB.com an actor is listed as playing him.A: "No. They need to take that off. No one's playing him."

Q: In The Paperboy, how closely did you stick to the original novel by Pete Dexter?A: "Other than David (Oyelowo's) character being black, because in the book he's white, and (in the book) Matthew's character dies by swimming off to sea, kills himself, he goes and drowns himself out in the ocean. But other than those two pieces it's pretty much straight from the book. I delved a little bit into the race of it all with Macy Gray (who plays a longtime maid in the Jansen house). I was going to do that movie Selma (about Martin Luther King, Jr.) with David Oyelowo so that was festering in me, civil rights stuff‚?¶so Macy's world is an homage to all of my aunts and all of my relatives, my grandmother who took care of white kids and had a love for them‚?¶for me the most profound moment of the film is when Zac (Efron) used the 'N' word and Macy's not upset for herself, she's really upset for her child. He is like her child (and tells him): 'You can't use that word, I love you too much. You'll use that in the wrong place and end up dead.'"

Q: Some of the most visceral scenes in The Paperboy were completed in the first few days of shooting, including simulated sex in a prison. How did you offset the cast's nerves?A: "We had a circle prayer before the telepathic sex scene (led by Oyelowo). Me, Nicole (Kidman), John (Cusack), Matthew (McConaughey), David (Oyelowo), Zac (Efron). Circle prayer meeting."

Q: I hear you almost cut the scene where Nicole Kidman urinates on Zac Efron. Why?A: "Because I was terrified. (Laughs) I was in the editing room just about to push delete. I literally was going to push the delete button. You sit there and you're alone and you're in this bubble in this edit room with your editor and you're banging your head, about to deliver your eight-months-and-two-week project. And you've got two weeks to deliver the baby. And I got terrified, I was like, 'Oh my god, this is all they're going to focus on.' And I called Nicole: 'Nicole, I can't do this.' And she said, 'You were man enough to write it. You were man enough to make me do it. You better be man enough to keep it in the movie.'"

Q: How did you know that John Cusack, such an iconic rom-com star, had it in him to play such a terrifying killer?A: "I directed the movie and I'm telling you ‚?? I'm scared of him, even now when I watch the movie. He scared the (expletive) out of me. Love John. John and I sat down at the Chateau Marmont a couple years ago and we said we had to figure it out. I said he was brilliant, and (The Paperboy) came up, and I said, let's rock and roll."

Q: Is award season on your mind right now?A: (He pauses.) "You know, I think it's too early. This is going to sound weird, because Mo'Nique told me this and I didn't understand it‚?¶(after shooting the Precious scene in the social worker's office, 'Who's going to love me') I was gasping. I said Mo'Nique, 'I think you can get an Oscar for this'. And Mo'Nique was like, 'My Oscar was serving you, Lee.' She meant it, too, because she didn't promote anything for the Oscar. At all. Like zero. (He laughs.) And I understand that on another level now. Because my Oscar was working with this cast."

Q: The Paperboy is one of several grittier films Matthew McConaughey's released this year. Did you two discuss steering his career in a new direction?A: "Yeah, we did. I said, 'Listen, Matthew. You are in a unique situation right now. You've got people like my mom and all these housewives and young girls seeing you in one light. Are you ready to jump off the edge?' Because he's really good (in this). Kudos to him for having the balls to do what he just did for me. He came on my set of The Butler, he was supposed to play Kennedy, but he's playing this guy who's dying of AIDS in this new film he's doing and he lost all this weight and stuff, so he couldn't do it. So he came on set (to visit) yesterday, he was in town in New Orleans and I just sobbed in his arms. Because I was so proud of him that he rendered himself like this. Because he's a guy's guy. Everyone talks about Nicole's brave performance,and she is (brave), but he does something in this film ‚?? all those Matthew McConaugheyisms are gone."

Q: Do you feel an urge to push against boundaries in film?A: "I think that the media underestimates (filmgoers). They think we're going to be shoveled whatever comes out of their machine. And the machine is cool sometimes. I can get off on Avengers and stuff. But I think the days of The Exorcist, the days of Deliverance, the days of Cassavetes and great films, they're gone in America. People are too afraid to do anything. The ratings board screwed us up. Everybody's so safe. Truth is hard to tell! And you have to be willing to be criticized for it. It's OK not to like me. If you like all my stuff, something's wrong with you. (He chuckles.) I'm OK if you don't like me or my work, but you will feel something about my work, strongly."

Q: In The Butler, you've amassed a wide array of talent as your presidents: Robin Williams as Eisenhower, John Cusack as Nixon, Alan Rickman as Reagan, and more. How hard was that to accomplish?A: "I think it's just because the script is so good. I was nervous, it wasn't like The Paperboy or Precious, where I've got four actors around a table and we're just doing our thing. Or whether I was good enough to direct it, whether I had the capabilities of directing something that is that epic. I don't know, I still don't know. I think I got good work in the can. What I do know is it was the hardest thing I've ever done before in my life. I don't know that I want to work this hard again on anything, for sure. Every time I do a movie, a little piece of me dies. I don't take care of myself when I'm working. I eat bad, I drink. I don't take care of myself. I focus only on giving birth to this film. So I don't think I'll do anything this grand again."

Q: You worked with Alex Pettyfer on The Butler. I'm curious how that went for you. He's gotten a rough rap in Hollywood.A: "I know! What's up with that, man? That's so wrong. He was a complete gentleman. I'm working with him again too. He is a brilliant actor. He is really smart. He's a kid, man. He's 21. I don't know about him on other sets. But on my set, he was moving furniture and doing what everyone else was doing and he was part of the team. I love him."

Q: Did you receive any last bit of wisdom from Oprah?A: "It's weird with Oprah, because I keep forgetting that it's Oprah. I saw her on the TV, she was on some talk show and she's talking about me, and she's like 'Oh, he's so brilliant.' And I'm looking over my shoulder thinking to myself, she's convincing me that I'm brilliant. She's good.' I keep forgetting the power and persuasiveness of her words. She convinced me, and I'm the most insecure of them all."